Unaccountability Machines

The CDC has repeatedly changed the way in which it’s color-coded what constitutes high-levels of Covid on their maps. The New York Times, Politico, and others have repeatedly ‘sane-washed’ Donald Trump. Judges have repeatedly looked at the man and then looked the other way. JD Vance has shrugged in the face of gun deaths. (Were we expecting anything else?) Tony Blair has shrugged in the face of Grenfell.

The Unaccountability Machine sums up the historical roots of the above so (as conveyed by The Financial Times, at least) —

"The origin of the problem … is the managerial revolution that began after the second world war, abetted by the advent of cheap computing power and the diffusion of algorithmic decision-making into every sphere of life. These systems have ended up “acting like a car’s crumple-zone to shield any individual manager from a disastrous decision” … While attractive from the individual’s perspective, they scramble the feedback on which society as a whole depends. [But] relying on the personal discretion of middle managers would simply result in a different kind of mess."

And so — an open-ended question for all of you: what form might an ‘accountability machine’ take? The focus of The Unaccountability Machine itself swerves off in a more corporate direction and ends up talking about private equity takeovers guaranteeing the debt of those they’re seeking to buyout, and that obviously doesn’t really cover the ground we’re trying to cover when we’re talking about these moments in time of seeming system-wide failures of accountability.

So what’s the answer? Is it just ‘unions?’ Is it something more? And, if so, what? I have further thoughts on this, but this piece of writing — such as it is — is intended to be primarily facilitative or generative rather than any sort of ‘definitive statement’; even if you end up saying nothing at all, find yourself not thinking of anything right away, or find your attention inevitability drifting elsewhere. It’s all good.